‘I decided I was going to live’: Elizabeth Smart reveals her will to survive during 2002 kidnap in new book

Elizabeth Smart has been making strides since her abduction captured the nation’s attention in 2002. Her book, 'My Story,' tells harrowing tale of fear and survival. (Rick Bowmer/AP)

Elizabeth Smart has pulled back the veil on the nine months she was held captive by a madman and his sinister wife after she was kidnapped at age 14 from her Salt Lake City bedroom.

Now, in "My Story," a book that hits shelves Tuesday, the 25-year-old reveals what inspired her fierce will to survive.

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Smart, one of six children in a devout Mormon family, was asleep on the night of June 5, 2002, when she felt a dirty beard against her face.

"I have a knife to your neck," Brian Mitchell whispered. "Don't make a sound. Get out of bed or I'll kill you and your family."

Elizabeth Smart's book 'My Story' will be in stores Monday.

The self-styled prophet, who had worked for the Smart family doing odd jobs, had decided the beautiful, blond child was to be his second wife.

His first wife, the haggard Wanda Barzee, was waiting in a hidden mountain encampment for him to bring her back.

After a long, forced hike up the mountain behind her home, they arrived. Barzee pulled Smart into the tent. There she forced the girl to take her clothes off and wait.

Brian Mitchell had done some odd jobs for the Smart family when he abducted 14-year-old Elizabeth in 2002. (Douglas C. Pizac/AP)

"Over the next nine months, Brian David Mitchell would rape me every day, sometimes multiple times a day," Smart writes.

Afterward, Smart lay on the floor of the tent, "completely broken." In her faith and in her family, "a great deal of emphasis is placed on sexual purity." She wondered if her family would want her back.

It was then she fought for the internal conviction that her family would still love her. She says it was the turning point.

Wanda Barzee, wife of Brian Mitchell and an accomplice in keeping her prison for nine months. (Getty Images/Getty Images)

"I decided no matter what happened, I was going to find a way to survive."

On the second day in camp, she was given an "anatomy lesson." Mitchell insisted all three be naked while he demonstrated on Barzee what he wanted Smart to know.

"Look!" Mitchell commanded the terrified and defenseless teenager.

Ed and Lois Smart with their daughter, Elizabeth, shortly after she was rescued from Mitchell and Barzee. (RON EDMONDS/AP)

After the demonstration, he raped her.

On the third day, she heard her Uncle David's voice calling her name. As the many searchers fanned out across the mountain, her uncle had come within shouting range. Mitchell was instantly at her side, threatening to kill him if she called out.

His power over her was reinforced by daily rape. He also forced Smart to drink alcohol, an act that the teenager found almost more traumatizing than anything else. It was Smart who planted the seed that they should hitchhike back to Utah. Two blocks from a Walmart where she had stared at the pictures of missing children on the wall, discouraged to find hers wasn't among them, police cars rolled up. Someone recognized her and made a call.

Even then she was too afraid to tell the cops her name. It was only when one officer said to her, "Are you Elizabeth Smart? Because if you are, your family has missed you so much since you were gone! They want you back. They love you. They want you to come home."